Last Exhibition Game

September 30th, 2007

You know the best thing about the preseason? It’s over.

OK, hard to get a read for much of anything tonight because Nygel Pelletier was in midseason form, calling scores of totally unnecessary penalties and making it a power play contest. The Penguins went 3-for-12 and Hershey went 0-for-9 and thus your final score was 5-1 Penguins.

On the power play, you had to like Mark Ardelan’s work — a goal and two assists. Alex Goligoski looked good too. If Kris Letang gets sent down, those are three really good point men for the power play. Throw in Jonathan D’Aversa and there’s no shortage of offensive defensemen with this team.

Ty Conklin looked solid too. The notebook that describes the game details deals largely with him. In the preseason, counting one NHL and two AHL exhibition games, he’s 2-0-1 with a .933 save percentage. That will work. I expect him to play a lot, especially in the early season while Dave Brown and/or John Curry are still straightening out their games.

Not a whole lot of tone-setting for Wednesday’s opener, although Pelletier’s incessant whistle might have had something to do with that. Nathan Smith took on Malcolm MacMillan after MacMillan hit Ben Lovejoy in a spot that could have been called boarding. MacMillan left with a cut under his left eye for his troubles. Deryk Engelland looked good in a scrap with Tom Maxwell. Aaron Boogaard got tangled up in his jersey in a fight with Grant McNeill. I said it last year and I’ll say it again. If an AHL team needs toughness, it could do a lot worse than Grant McNeill.

To some comments on the season preview from today’s paper. To dps, yep, the AHL preview was in predicted order of finish. Here are my predictions, if anyone’s interested.

EAST

ATLANTIC

1. Hershey

1. Providence

2. Norfolk

2. Springfield

3. Bridgeport

3. Hartford

4. Penguins

4. Manchester

5. Albany

5. Lowell

6. Binghamton

6. Portland

7. Philadelphia

7. Worcester

NORTH

WEST

1. Grand Rapids

1. Chicago

2. Hamilton

2. Rochester

3. Toronto

3. Peoria

4. Manitoba

4. Milwaukee

5. Syracuse

5. Iowa

6. Rochester

6. Quad City

7. Lake Erie

7. Houston

8. San Antonio

To SMA, thanks for the compliment. I tried to capture the spirit of the thing.

To bigmac, I sent an email to our Web editor to see if we can get the whole preview online. I’ll post a link as soon as I can.

Finally, I’m expecting Pittsburgh to make its final cuts tomorrow. My current prediction is Stone, Filewich, Taffe and Letang come down and the parent Penguins start the season with 13 forwards (Adam Hall being the 13th) and 8 D (with Scuderi, Nasreddine and Weaver being 6-7-8). I reserve the right to change that prediction at least two more times.

If that holds true, WBS could have 14 forwards on the roster by this time tomorrow. Do you keep all 14 or send Mark Letestu and/or Aaron Boogaard down? I’m not saying either of them did anything to deserve the demotion. Just do you want two rookies sitting in the press box?

A winner of first-place honors in the blogging category of the 2012 Pennsylvania Associated Press Managing Editors awards, Penguins Insider was created to give local hockey fans an interactive, in-depth way to follow the team they so passionately support. The blog's author, beat writer Jonathan Bombulie, has been covering the team since its inception in 1999. Contact him at jbombulie@aol.com

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